In reply to: Schools are part of the problem posted by Irishlawyer
the schools don't care about USA soccer nor do they want to help soccer players. The only way they would is if they benefited from pay to play. So until that unlikely event occurs, high school (and college on the men's side) will never be part of the development pyramid. Hence, we have the system we have now.
What we do have though is parents who are more sophisticated. We have way better coaching today (no longer does an Eastern European, English, or South American accent get you a coaching credential like in years past). We have platforms that are adapting to the needs of the kids (the GAL is allowing some high school play in most some parts of the country).
The biggest change will come with solidarity payments. Eventually, the MLS will realize that they have a gold mine in the young players they can sell off to the rest of the world (on both the men's and, based on recent changes in the European Women's game, on the women's side). That will be the true turning point and the USA will zoom from there.
There will indeed come a tipping point where the worldwide popularity of soccer catches on in the us and more kids will want to play soccer and schools will not be able to ignore the sport anymore. We just aren’t there yet. And the decline in the overall participation in youth soccer proves that. But the growing popularity is quite new. But it’s significant. And while football isn’t going away it’s popularity is taking a hit and the head injuries are a concern. When the next wave of kids come from millennials come along I suspect that we’ll see the kind of numbers where schools will start supporting the programs. And clubs will have more players when the pool gets larger. I believe there will be a day when clubs and schools coexist like aau.
Particularly kids that don't play football because their parents think it is too dangerous will move over to soccer. What has been happening is those kids have moved over to lacrosse.
As for overall numbers, most sports are down across the board by overall numbers. But, I blame that on specialization that is happening at younger ages now more than ever. You wouldn't believe, actually you probably do, the pressure that is put on parents and kids by coaches to specialize in one sport over the other in light of teams of all sports (outside of football) moving to all year travel teams. It is absurd.
Sure, kids will play other sports. Including lacrosse. And hockey. But if soccer suffers from being a white suburban sport, certainly lacrosse is much more so. I live in Fort Wayne, the second largest city in Indiana and roughly around the 100th in the US. A handful of schools offer the sport as a club. A colleague that recently moved here from NE has to commute 90 minutes or so to Indy in order for his daughter to continue to play competitively.
Moreover, nearly every community across the US has some form of youth soccer program. So when you're talking about Millennials seeking alternatives from football, soccer seems the obvious next step for a significant number of them.
But, I also don't think you right in the sense that youth soccer is at some tipping point of acceptance at the millenial level (though I might be misunderstanding your point).
Youth soccer has been at about the 3 million or above participants since the late 90s (likely from the 94 WC games). I'm not sure what else can happen for it to grow more.
I lived all over the place growing up in the US. I always played soccer and baseball in every place I lived until 7th grade. It was just something to keep me busy. In 7th grade, my parents finally relented and let me play football. I then moved to MD and started playing lacrosse. So I guess what I am getting at is that if soccer isn't at some tipping point, I doubt it ever will. This isn't to say soccer won't be part of the sports landscape but that other sports come along. I know flag football has exploded in the last 10 years so while the thought is it might be soccer as the move for many parents - my guess is kids will go to something else...as I said lacrosse or flag football or who knows.
This generation of parents will be the first ones to really live through the growth of the popularity of professional soccer in the US. Games from the top leagues, in particular EPL, are easy to access and the stars like Messi and Ronaldo are household names.
Soccer is easily the most popular sport in the world. It stands to reason that it would catch on at some point.
I'm personally not sure participant growth is that related to development of professional level players. It isn't unrelated, but I tend to think the key factor is a combination of soccer match attendance, eyeballs on games on TV, and realistically for today's media market views on social media. That can drive the money which can incentivize development of future professional players as compared to incentivizing pay for play.
To answer what can change for soccer given flat long-term participation, one possibility is a new generation can make it a sport they follow similarly to the way other big sports are followed in the US. Of course, people have been talking about this for a long time.
in the spring with soccer in the fall. Much to my chagrin (thankfully my daughter still loves soccer), while he likes to play and likes his teammates, he definitely doesn't "love" soccer. Based on his build, he would've been a stud in H.S. football but mom and dad kept him out of football. When Lacrosse came along freshman year he looked at me with a wry smile and said "I want to hit someone". He loves lacrosse. He plays soccer.
I agree with everything except the parents being more sophisticated. I think it should have happened, but with my youngest, the lowest common denominator among the parental understanding of the game seemed to win out.
The question is whether the MLS and anyone else can really make a grassroots model work for them financially and administratively. Can they help local leagues, have networks of effectively scouts, keep youngish soccer more local, to make it more feasible to cover costs? I always figured a lot of the travel at young ages was a bad feedback mechanism with pay to play - more travel made it seem like more pay was justified. As said above, you need the money from selling players to have a chance to make it work. One worry I have is I think you might be able to compete in MLS just by utilizing all the other talent in Central and South America, etc. I would like to see a really good USMNT in my lifetime.
The parents I have met at the highest levels (ECNL and DA and now MLS and GAL) seem to understand the system and the pyramid. They club hop in an opportunistic way, but they are not blinded by "our club won this many games or tournaments". They look at who is the coach, how many players are they taking, how much time is there to go around, how much training is there compared to games, etc.
The USSF and US Youth soccer had an opportunity to put their MRL league into an amazing position when the DA folded. Instead, they sat on their hands and eventually barfed out the "club v club" model which is really just a poor-man's platform for also-ran clubs that allows them to sell exclusivity to (here I go) UNSOPHISTICATED parents (maybe you are right!)
We need a legitimate pyramid. We need kids to "travel" locally until age U14. At that point, we can get into the true travel that comes with playing teams from other states.
The mega-clubs (Eclipse, Rush, Surf, etc.) gobble up the little, community based clubs with empty promises and that's where the system falls under its own weight. In Chicagoland, there were a ton of great little clubs that were eventually gobbled up in merger after merger that, ultimately, had the effect of helping to create B and C teams to subsidize the A team (A team travels to six tourneys and the B team does 1, etc.)
As for your last worry, I think Don Garber is counting on the fact that the other non-US talent exists so that he can keep selling new franchises. MLS=all about the $$
My main story about parents is - as I switched to my youngest in the earliest little kids soccer, and there were younger parents who had grown up playing soccer, I hoped it would be better even before there was some selecting out of the more talented players and motivated families. But I found that without these knowledgeable parents being a real clear majority, lower common denominator stuff still tended to win out.